Playing “I Spy” for speech therapy
I love using “I spy” for articulation and for increasing length of utterance. It is a fun and easy activity that requires little to no preparation. You can use “I Spy” to work on articulation or language. Below is an example of how I use this game for articulation.
Items to use for I Spy: things in the room, pictures (like the ones in the collage above), sound cards, and books. What are some ways that you play “I Spy”?
Word Level S-blends articulation
- Word Level: I will ask the child “what do you see?”. I model saying “spy”. I do not add the “I” until I know that the child has mastered “spy”. We then practice naming things that we see. So it might look like this:
- Therapist: What do you spy? Say spy.
- Child: spy
- Therapist: What do you spy?
- Child: Names an item in the room. Have them share what they see at the appropriate level. Since you aren’t adding “I spy” yet, this could look like: “a chair” or “a table”.
- Once a child has mastered saying spy, I add “I” or “he/she” spy.
- We work on “I spy”, “he/she spies”, and “they spy” until that is solid.
- Once I know the student can say “I spy” and “a chair”, we put them together and move to the phrase level.
- I always remind myself that there is a big jump from word to phrases, so I make those jumps meet the needs of my student.
Articulation S-blends at the phrase level
- Phrase level: I ask the child “what do you see?”. I model “I spy a chair”. So this is what it might look like:
- Therapist: What do you spy? Tell me, “I spy a …”
- Child: I spy a …
- Therapist: I like how you included all of your sounds. Let’s see what else we can spy
This is a great activity for working on coarticulation and increasing the length of utterance, whether you are focusing on s-blends or not.